A quarter-century ago, we were in the midst of a Y2K panic and wondering if the worldwide power grid and economy were about to collapse.
The year was 1999 when the adults were watching sitcoms such as “Friends” on TV and renting movies from Blockbuster while the kids were listening to the Backstreet Boys and trading Pokemon cards.
In real life, President Bill Clinton tried to convince us that “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” while Tony Soprano was making his debut on HBO and telling us, “I’m not a murderer. I’m a soldier.”
A majority of the Americans weren’t on the Internet yet, and those who were used screeching dial-up modems. The bulky, clunky Nokia 3210 was the most popular cell phone of the day.
And, in sports, the Florida Gators were a national power while the UCF Knights were an irrelevant afterthought.
So much has changed since that September night 25 years ago when Florida first played UCF in football and coach Steve Spurrier’s Gators routed coach Mike Kruczek’s Knights 58-27 at the Swamp. Even though the fourth-ranked Gators won their NCAA-high 29th straight home game, Spurrier wasn’t happy that his defense allowed Vic Penn to throw for 379 yards just a week before opening the SEC schedule against third-ranked Tennessee.
“Shoot, you can just throw out these first two games.,” Spurrier said of UF’s two early-season tuneups against Western Michigan and UCF.
Added Gators linebacker Teddy Sims at the time: “It’s good to have this one out of the way. It’s time for the real season to kick off.”
In other words, UCF wasn’t even considered a legitimate opponent for UF; a reflection of the gaping chasm between an established SEC power and a neophyte program still searching for relevance.
Now let’s fast forward to Saturday when UCF is coming into the Swamp again as an ascending program with dreams of competing for a Big 12 championship while the Gators find themselves in a state of decline and at yet another coaching crossroads. The narrative isn’t about UF’s supremacy; it’s about whether a Knights victory could be the death knell for embattled coach Billy Napier’s short tenure in Gainesville.
I’ll admit it, I never envisioned 25 years ago that UCF could ever be on equal footing with Florida, Florida State and Miami. I never imagined that the state’s traditional “Big 3” would now be the “Big 4.”
In 1999, Florida, Florida State and Miami were dominant on the national landscape while UCF played in the shadow of these college football behemoths. The Knights were still struggling to make the transition from Division I-AA to Division I-A (now FBS) just three years earlier. They had no conference, no TV revenue and were forced to take their obligatory beatings on the road against teams such as Florida just so they could pay the bills.
But UCF kept investing, building, believing, rising. The Big 3 got fat and happy while assuming their dominance would last forever. Miami hasn’t won a conference championship since it joined the ACC 20 years ago. Florida hasn’t won an SEC championship in 15 years. Florida State has won just one ACC championship in the last nine seasons.
Meanwhile, the Knights have taken advantage of the decline of the Big Three by landing recruits who might have once been locks to sign with Florida, Florida State or Miami. Now, with the Knights in the Big 12, some of those prospects look at UCF as a legitimate path to the College Football Playoff and the NFL.
If the Knights could win on Saturday, it would certainly validate their rise, but for the Gators the stakes are even higher. Their self-esteem is at stake. The loss to UCF in the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl could be explained away as the hangover effect of coach Dan Mullen being fired, replaced by interim coach Greg Knox and numerous players opting out of the bowl game.
But a loss to UCF at the Swamp on Saturday would be entirely different. There could be no excuses. It would undoubtedly be a crushing blow to the Gator ego and deepen the chaos and negativity surrounding the program.
For UCF, it’s a chance to finally step out of the once-immense shadow of the state’s flagship university.
For Florida, it’s a moment of truth for a program fighting to regain its relevance.
What a difference 25 years make.
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